The first day I made the Club PA mail account - the first day - I started getting those Nigerian Scams. Let's say five in a 24 hour period, the first day I had created the account. They're a Goddamn pox, I tell you. People have actually gone through with the whole charade, can you believe it? Ended up in Nigeria or God only knows where, forced to endure a hellish menu of monstrous acts until they have nothing else to give and end up in some hole in the jungle. I don't know if it's one idiot per hole, or if it's a big hole where they put all the idiots together, but that is neither here nor there.

Gabe got this one yesterday, it went a lot farther than most do to create an air of real adventure, what with kings and voodoo and whatnot. The whole scenario from panel one is laid out very clearly in the original mail, though we may have been reading a romantic subtext into the request that might not have been there.

I've made it clear what games get played at night, but my personal time has been consumed with Amplitude and Galactic Civilizations. I could probably kick out some impressions of them, but at the moment I'm enjoying them too much to bring my rational mind to bear. Amplitude on Monday probably, and GalCiv on Wednesday - but I did want to talk about how I bought Galactic Civilizations, because it is classy and deserves to be talked about.

The game can be purchased in stores, it's available now at most of the places people go to do that sort of thing. Developer Stardock also allows you to buy online, and they have an application called Stardock Central that manages this. It includes an IRC client, a browser with links to product specific forums, indeed it is rife with links to online resources. I was just impressed that a custom content delivery system that would make things really easy for me was seen as a priority. I queued up the game and all its resources for installation, and it took care of it. There was a problem recently, now resolved, where an early version of Stardock Central would devour the files in the root directory or something. To be perfectly honest with you, I never liked those files anyway.

I need to hit the sack, in about three hours I need to get up and go to the airport for the Kansas thing. I have a few quick notes on this and that, in the hope that some of it might pique your curiosity.

• It's not something I'm proud of, but sometimes when I have had a couple - a couple what I'll leave up to you - it stimulates my shopping cortex and the card comes out. Shit will arrive at my house, and I will have no idea how, the things that show up tend to be pretty cool. Apparently, I ordered a copy of d20 Modern, but by the time it arrived I'd already purchased it elsewhere. When I get home from Kansas, I'll find a way to give away that duplicate book - I don't doubt that a Penny Arcade reader could give it an excellent home. Tucked into the Amazon box, however, was another book - Green Ronin's indispensable reference "Ultramodern Firearms," a revised edition of the original masterpiece now customized for the d20 system. I read it cover to cover earlier today, and aside from a few typos it was well worth the money that I didn't mean to spend.

• I avoided all mention of the game Nexagon, because - please don't hate me - Nexagon sounds like a shampoo. It sounds like it strengthens the roots of hair. When I found out Strategy First was publishing it, I took another look. That's not to say that everything Strategy First does is gold. What they do is take chances on games that satisfy the strange cravings of my heart, like Disciples II or Rails Across America. I saw that they picked up Uplink for retail release also, which speaks well of them, and they're also publishing GalCiv, which is how I found out about it in the first place. In any case, the pedigree of the publisher made me take a closer look at the Nexagon - and I kicked myself for having been so petty. Take a look for yourself, but good luck classifying it. It is a real-time strategy game that takes place in arenas players build themselves and set against each other. I'm sorry, but that sounds really, really cool.

• I've also been following Panzers as close as I can, but there just isn't a lot to know yet. It's a strategy game as well, but from what I can tell it is founded on role-playing style advancement for troops and the like. It was the scale it seems to be at that drew my eye, Gamespot put up some new pics today that are worth celebrating.

• A recent e-mail exchange with Threeboy from Threeboy dot net reminded me how much I like the comic they do over there. It's top drawer.

• Scott wanted to trade strips for April Fools Day, which is the only holiday I like less than Forcible Sodomy Day. We accepted because we like Scott, but since April Fools lands on a Tuesday, and running a comic on a Tuesday here would probably cause the Earth to crack and disgorge magma, we'll be running his guest strip on Monday. Our PvP offering will be available over there on Tuestag.

I basically just call the kitten "Kitten" now. It's easy to remember, and it's accurate.

(CW)TB out.

shiniest car i've ever seen